Jak Phoenix

  Chapter Seventeen - Tensions of Pursuit

  Cyan had made herself comfortable in Jak’s pilot chair and was looking over the control panel in the attempt to familiarize herself with the overused switches and levers lining the front of the cockpit.

  She wondered how Jak made heads or tails of anything on his ship. Much like the other areas she had seen while on board, the dash was full of mismatched gauges and tacked on parts. After some time reviewing them, she felt she had a handle on the important settings and flight controls in case the need to make use of them should arise.

  While Cyan’s specialty was in repair, she also knew her way around the pilot’s seat. Her weakness was only in her lack of experience. Her reflexes, intelligence and awareness of her surroundings were well developed, but she hadn’t had the chance to showcase and build on her flying skills very often. Cyan had flown her share of simple point-to-point missions, but free flight was something all together different.

  Since Jak was still in bed, Baxter figured it wouldn’t have hurt to let her have a go at the controls and to try out a few manoeuvres.

  “Did it work?” grumbled a voice from behind them.

  They both turned around to see Jak’s dishevelled form with half strung on clothes and lopsided hair.

  “You should have seen it,” said Baxter. He was wide eyed and animated. “When the plasma was dumped it had an instant chain reaction. It was an awesome light show.”

  “Still,” added Cyan, “We should probably try to avoid playing any more games with radiation for a while.”

  “How are you feeling, buddy?” asked Baxter.

  “Good,” he grumped quickly, as if to dismiss the question. “But did the beacon work?”

  Cyan patted the small monitor between her and Baxter.

  “Here he is,” she said, pointing her long slender finger at the blip on the screen.

  “His ship came back online like ten seconds after you put the homing beacon on it, then he went to light speed and shot off right away,” said Baxter.

  “The signal came in loud and clear as soon as our ship came back online,” continued Cyan. “While you were napping, I fixed the engine regulator and charged the system back up. As soon as we could, we took off and have been following him for the last few hours.” She paused. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

  “Bit of a headache. But otherwise fine. How long is it gonna take to catch him?”

  “We’re a few hours behind him,” said Cyan. “We’ve been able to match his speed, even with these ancient engines, so it’s just a matter of waiting for him to slow down a bit.”

  “How’s my chair doing?”

  “Comfortable.”

  “Great.”

  Jak turned and headed straight for the lounge. He knew entering Cyan’s territory would probably set her off, but for once his mission had nothing to do with irking her. He entered the room, avoided looking at the changes in décor and headed for his bar. He cracked open the refrigerator door and grabbed a nice cold bottle of Zild beer. He was quite happy that the ship had been online long enough to re-cool his drinks.

  He dropped down on one of the couches that was now being used as Cyan’s bed, threw his feet up and spread his arms across the back. He took a gloriously large gulp of the chilled drink and dropped his head back onto the cushion.

  Baxter shouted “Hey” as he burst into the room, ruining Jak’s attempt at tranquility.

  Baxter opened the fridge, grabbed another bottle of the same drink and popped the cap.

  He plopped down on the couch, opposite Jak.

  Jak didn’t change position and kept his stare on the ceiling.

  “I’m glad you left her up front flying the ship.” He spoke with his head still slung back over the back of the couch.

  “Well, considering she could probably build a better one, by herself, I think she’ll be fine.”

  Jak spoke in a tone of false patience. “That being said, I still can’t wait until we can get our ship back and move on. I’m tired of all of this.” Jak took another swig of his drink and dropped his head backward again as he adjusted his back.

  “Why, so we can go back to being a couple of bums?”

  “Whatever,” said Jak.

  “She just saved your life. Give her a break.”

  “Remind me to thank her.”

  “This is what you always do.”

  “What is?”

  “You push people away. You’re too cool to let your guard down, so instead you belittle them. Look, I know you don’t mean it, but to others you come across as a bit of an ass.”

  Jak straightened out, looked at Baxter and laughed exaggeratedly.

  “I’m the ass? You just described her down to the smallest detail, and you’re saying it’s me?”

  “You don’t see it, do you?”

  “See what?”

  “You’re exactly alike.”

  “Whatever.”

  “If you’d talk to her for more than ten seconds without starting an argument, then you’d see that she’s actually a really great person.”

  “Unbelievable,” said Jak, laughing in disbelief. “Remember when she was gonna shoot us?”

  “Well, yeah—”

  “But it’s me who starts the arguments. Man, I must’ve woke up in some alternate reality or something.”

  Jak stood up and walked out on Baxter, back to the cockpit along with his dark bottle of beer.

  Baxter popped up quickly as well, and followed closely behind.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to start a fight or anything.”

  “Fight?” asked Jak. “Who’s fighting? I just want to get moving with this so called mission. Plus, I’d like to see how our new expert pilot is doing.”

  Jak timed his words so Baxter had no chance to respond before they entered the flight cabin, where Cyan was sitting back comfortable with her fingers locked behind her head.

  She turned as they entered. Jak spoke first, only because it looked like Cyan was about to.

  “Let me guess. You’ve recalibrated and reconfigured some things and the ship works better now, right?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  Jak gave her a heartless smile and said, “Of course you did.”

  “Hey.” Cyan interrupted loudly enough to get Jak’s attention. “What the hell is your problem?” She continued without an answer. “You just basically got a second chance at life, and you’re acting like this?”

  “Hey, guys, just take it easy.” Baxter was determined to calm the situation down. It was common for frustrations to run high with everyone in such close quarters, but they couldn’t afford to become enemies when they were so close to their goal. “Remember who the bad guy is. It’s not any of us.”

  Jak didn’t want to argue with his friend.

  “How’s our course?” he asked in half-hearted attempt to get the conversation back on track.

  “Murdock’s been slowing down, so we’re steadily gaining on him.”

  “Alright,” said Jak, “let me in there.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?” asked Jak. He was dumbfounded by Cyan’s response.

  “I think I speak for both of us,” she said while motioning toward Baxter, “when I say that I should fly for a while.”

  Baxter’s eyes bulged.

  “Hey, don’t include me in this,” he said. Jak didn’t hear him.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Why should you fly my ship?”

  “Really? You don’t know? Jak, you’ve got a beer in your hand and you look like hell.”

  Jak made an attempt to straighten his hair with the free hand not holding the bottle.

  “Sorry, we can’t all be gorgeous beauty queens.”

  “You were almost dead a couple of hours ago.”

  “Bax, help me out here.”

  Baxter refused to remove his eyes from his monitor. “Sorry, not involved,” he said.

  “Fine,” said Jak. “Hopefully she?
??ll fly right into a star or something and get all this over with.”

  “Grow up,” said Cyan, just as Jak was in the process of storming out the door of the cockpit.

  Baxter and Cyan looked at each other as they heard him crashing around in the rear of the ship. Neither of them were about to get up and see what he was doing. After a few more bangs and the sound of snapping metal, Jak re-entered the cabin with a chair in hand. They could see by the broken rivets on the bottom that it had been a permanent fixture in one of the rooms.

  Jak put the chair on the floor behind the two control chairs. He rocked it back and forth to work the legs into position and sat down with his drink. He crossed his legs, tipped his head back and downed the rest of the bottle.

  Jak could tell Baxter and Cyan didn’t know what to do as they sat staring at him. He reached his hand out toward the stars and simply said, “Well then, proceed.”

  They flew in relative silence in a generally straight line for almost an hour before anyone spoke. Cyan worked up the nerve to talk first.

  “So has anyone thought about what we’re actually going to do once we catch Murdock?” She saw that no response was coming and continued. “I mean, our weapons are toast and we couldn’t beat him when they still worked. So what is the plan here?”

  Jak made it clear he was considering the matter and said with confidence, “Don’t worry, it’ll work out.”

  He had no idea what he was going to do when they got there.

  “By the time we catch up,” Jak continued, “we’ll have a plan ready.”

  Cyan rolled her eyes.

  “Guys,” interrupted Baxter, “I think we may have to hurry on the whole planning thing. Murdock’s ship has come to a full stop. We’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”

  “Alright,” said Jak. His mood had cleared up, likely due to the stressful situation which had arisen, since these types of situations always seemed to put a jolt in Jak’s soul. “Before I give you my ideas, does anyone have any they’d like to share?” He looked back and forth between Cyan and Baxter who provided nothing but blank stares. “Okay then, going in with guns blazing and hoping for the best it is.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Hey, like you said, I was nearly dead a few hours ago. Don’t expect miracles.”

  Cyan couldn’t help but smile at such a foolish, reckless and overly confident man. She thought for a moment that if they did fail, at least she would be alongside these two clowns who if nothing else, had heart.

  After some time, Murdock’s ship became visible on their regular sensors. The homing beacon had successfully completed its job of leading them to the craft across the large expanse of space.

  “I’m getting some strange readings,” said Baxter. He was flying through some readouts on his screen, comparing statistics and data. “I swear I saw a large energy build-up, but it’s gone now. The computer recorded a lot of data on it, but it seems calm now.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No, I mean it’s overly calm. Murdock’s just sitting in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Look, he’s in view.” Cyan was pointing toward the silver and blue speck growing larger by the second.

  Jak approached the dash and without discussion Cyan arose and squeezed her way to the back of the room. Jak dropped into his seat and flicked on the radio.

  “Murdock. Last chance. We have two high energy missiles locked on to you. We want the Scoparian artifacts. Just let us have them and we’ll call it even.”

  He turned off the microphone and awaited a reply. Static ensued.

  “I’m not getting any readings off that ship,” said Baxter. “The main power is on, but judging by the lack of any fluctuations, I’d say its systems are down.”

  “What’s he up to?” Jak reviewed the information Baxter was processing.

  “I think he’s dead in the water.”

  Jak wasted no time in moving the ship closer.

  “Bax, we’re linking up. Head down to the dock port.”

  Baxter made his way into the docking area while Jak manoeuvred the ship up against the shiny hull of Murdock’s vessel. It was an easy link up. The ports connected and the magnetic seal was active. Baxter rushed back to the cockpit, leaving the final opening of the hatchway to Jak.

  “Get your guns,” said Jak. Cyan raced over to her room to get the two small pistols she had used on them so long ago.

  Jak passed Baxter on his way out of the flight cabin.

  “I need you to stay here in case anything goes bad.” said Jak.

  Baxter nodded and plopped himself down in Jak’s chair.

  “You know, my chair really is the more comfortable one,” he said as he adjusted his position.

  “We’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” Jak held up his arm and tapped the electronic communicator that was strapped to his wrist. “I’ve got my radio on me and I’ll give you a shout if I need to.”

  From the storage room, Jak snatched the tarnished Z8 pistol Rusty had given him and checked the charge. It was filled to capacity. He slipped it into his belt and opened up the compartment where he stored his weaponry. He pulled a long black Z16 rifle off the racking and again checked for the charge. Satisfied, he closed the door and rushed around the corner.

  He nearly ploughed into Cyan with the big plasmatic shot gun. She stopped in her tracks and raised her hands in jest.

  “Looks like you’re ready for business,” said Cyan.

  Jak smiled and rushed her off to the dock port.

  He took the right and Cyan the left, unlocking the heavy steel door which protected the circular linkage tube connecting them to the other ship. She helped him pull the rusty hatch off to the side, revealing the opposite door of Murdock’s ship. A quick peek through the small thick glass window pane exposed no movement. Jak noted the ding out of the bright metal opening wheel from the other spacecraft. He smiled, knowing the source of the chip had been his very own lasers.

  “Cover me. I’m gonna open the door and if anyone is waiting to greet us, blow them away.”

  Jak tugged the wheel counter clockwise with a moderate amount of strength. It gave fairly easily, lacking the grime and rust Jak’s ship came equipped with.

  He looked back at Cyan, nodded and reefed the door to the side.

  They were greeted by nothing, aside from a few electronic beeps on the computer console in front of them, while it churned through some data in the sterile hallway.

  Jak signalled for Cyan to check the left with a point in that direction. They lined up beside each other and sprung through the door.

  Jak to the right with his rifle.

  Cyan to the left with her pair of chromed pistols.

  They were again greeted by nothing.

  “You think anyone’s here?” Cyan asked in a hushed tone.

  “I don’t know where they would have gone.”

  They made their way toward the front of the ship. Jak figured if there was anyone aboard, they would be in the cockpit.

  Cyan and Jak walked slowly and silently through the corridors of the ship, checking each and every crevice for a potential attack.

  While the ship was still bright, it still cast an eerie feeling upon them, walking through a nearly silent foreign ship in the middle of nowhere. Each and every small and inconsequential sound bit at their nerves, with the anticipation of a surprise at the next corner gnawing at their minds.

  Jak didn’t like it. The silence and the lack of any defence just didn’t make any sense.

  The door to the flight deck slid aside.

  Again, they saw nothing and entered the room cautiously.

  As Jak turned, the shock of the dead man made him visibly jump and his heart rate accelerate. There he was, one of Murdock’s men, clearly dead in a chair alongside a computer bank. His head was slumped forward and the burnt spot through the back of his blue armour was painfully clear.

  “We should get the hell out of here,” said Cyan.

  “Yeah,” w
as all Jak could say.

  He turned and they skittered as silently as possible out of the uncomfortable scene of the cabin.

  “You think Murdock is dead?”

  “I don’t know. We need to check the rest of the rooms and get to the cargo area. Fast.”

  Jak flipped on the small radio device strapped on his wrist with an old thin brown leather band.

  “Bax, get ready to get out of here. If I tell you to go, you go.”

  Jak turned off the transmitter before Baxter’s reply could make unwanted noise or present him with an unwanted protest.

  They made their way through the ship, checking each room and finding nothing. Finally they reached the cargo area and opened the door.

  Seeing the body of the dead crew member was not as much of a shock this time. Another of Murdock’s crew lay dead, face down, on the cold silver floor of the cargo room, with his arm stretched out and hand still holding his gun.

  They emerged into the room after checking each angle for the source of the gunfire. Cyan rushed over to the man on the floor and checked his pulse to confirm his death.

  “What do you notice?” asked Jak.

  “Aside from the dead guy?”

  “There’s nothing left. There are only a few cases over there and definitely none of the crates from Scoparia.”

  “No tablets.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jak turned to the other side of the cargo bay and took a couple of steps. He paused. Did he hear something? A swishing noise?

  He turned back and looked behind them. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “There are four cases over there. I swear there were five a few seconds ago.”

  Jak heard the same swish sound from somewhere he couldn’t identify. He looked at Cyan.

  “I heard it that time.”

  Jak activated his rifle and Cyan took the safety locks off her pistols.

  The next swish sound was in front of them. This time it was accompanied by a threatening looking helmeted figure holding a rifle more dangerous looking than Jak’s. It appeared to be a large man, dressed in a dirty dark armoured suit with a metallic belt containing a small lit computer panel. His powerful looking weapon was already aimed directly at them. His appearance out of thin air gave Jak only enough time to knock Cyan and himself onto the floor before the imposing figure let loose a bolt of energy.

  The shot barely missed, blackening a wall panel behind them.

  Jak was quick to react, firing a bolt of energy from his position on the floor. The old Z16 rifle looked quaint but it packed a punch, connecting with the midsection of the intruder and sending him reeling into a wall. He crumpled to the floor and did not get up.

  Another similarly dressed attacker came through the cargo bay door and was stopped and silenced by a pin point shot from Cyan’s pistol.

  They had no time for celebration or dry comments as one by one, armed individuals burst out of nothingness and into the space in the cargo bay ahead of them.

  Cyan was fast. She blasted three enemies in succession, using the last one as a shield to absorb two high energy blasts from another. As the attacker checked his weapon, Cyan hit her target.

  Jak was less fancy. He walked straight ahead reloading his plasmatic gun and knocking down the threats one after another.

  As he passed a cove in the wall his weapon was knocked from his hand by a hidden attacker. Jak responded with a hard punch to the stomach, causing the aggressor to keel over. He took the opportunity to rip the helmet from the man’s head.

  The individual behind it was an ugly scarred humanoid being with distant and foggy looking eyes. He knocked it out cold with a heavy uppercut to the disgusting face. Jak picked up his rifle off the floor with just enough time to swing it onto the arm of one of the relentless figures. As he grasped his arm in pain, Jak finished him off with a close range laser blast.

  He turned to see Cyan take a nasty hit over the head with some kind of steel club wielded by one of the assailants. He saw her drop to the floor but was amazed to see her quickly rebound instead of wilting, putting a hole through the helmet of the armoured creature in front of her.

  Jak turned on his wrist radio.

  “Baxter, get out—”

  A searing pain shot through Jak’s wrist as one of the same metal bats came down on his arm. Shattered bits of the transmitter tinkled onto the floor. He couldn’t move his hand yet and prayed it wasn’t broken. Cyan killed Jak’s attacker from across the room as he was about to stab Jak with the sharp end of the club weapon.

  He saw the cargo bay quickly filling up with enemies trying to figure out what was going on and who to kill.

  Dragging his rifle with his one good hand, Jak darted across the bay, hopping around corpses and narrowly missing some hot laser blasts. He intentionally collided with Cyan, knocking the both of them onto the floor of the hallway outside the cargo bay.

  “Come on!” he shouted, “you’re having too much fun.”

  He noticed some blood on the side of Cyan’s face from a scrape. Her bare shoulders and chest were glistening with sweat as she nodded and followed him up the hall to the hatchway.

  Just as the hatchway was in sight, a laser blast hit the wall beside Jak, throwing off hot sparks and sharp glowing fragments. Jak was forced to shield his face and lost his footing in the smoky air. Cyan toppled over him, but was quick to regain her composure.

  He didn’t have time to do anything as Cyan was attacked and disarmed, held from behind by a menace far larger than her. Jak dropped his rifle, as it was useless with only one hand, and grabbed the small pistol from his belt. He blew away several of the fast moving raiders as they approached her, but was unable to get a clear shot of the one holding her. It dropped its gun and pressed some buttons on the belt it wore. The enemy and Cyan disappeared from sight as Jak made it to his feet.

  He blasted as many enemies as he could before his pistol ran dry. They still poured through the hallway after him. He picked his long plasma gun up off the floor and was only able to make it a few more steps before he was knocked down to the floor from behind. The smoke was heavy but he could feel the attackers clawing at his feet.

  He looked at the hatchway leading back to the safety of his ship, just as Baxter was running toward it from the other side.

  “No,” Jak yelled. “Get out of here.” Jak spotted the gun Baxter had armed himself with, hoping to join the fight.

  Baxter’s pace was persistent.

  Jak took a physical blow to the back that knocked the wind out of him. The dozens of ugly soldiers had stopped using laser weaponry and had resorted to crawling over each other and using physical force as they jammed the narrow corridor.

  The last move Jak could make was to swing his rifle from a half-sitting position into the control panel beside the hatch door. The heavy butt of the rifle connected and shattered the glass panel, automatically closing and locking the door in front of Baxter.

  Jak saw Baxter’s face through the thick glass window as the hostile invader slammed the back of his head with the metal baton. He could distantly feel the cold of the shiny floor as his face came to rest on it.

  Baxter saw the helmeted figure pick up Jak and press a button on a keypad on his belt. In the blink of an eye, Jak and his assailant disappeared. All that remained was a growing group of fierce looking fighters mulling around the smashed control panel, trying to figure out a quick way inside the Tempest.

  Baxter realized he needed to move fast and regroup, if there was even a shred of hope remaining in the safe recovery of his friends.

  Baxter dragged the heavy door of the Tempest shut, and spun the wheel as fast as he could, cutting off the seal with Murdock’s ship.

  He had left the engines online. When he reached the cockpit, they only needed a feather touch on the flight stick to move the craft.

  As he turned the ship to leave, he fought back the wateriness in his eyes
making it difficult for him to see ahead.

  Through his blurry vision he was able to make out a flickering against the scene of stars, off to the side of his craft. A flickering which soon steadied and revealed itself to be a giant dark ship. A black ship the size of a city, with many ugly abutments and protrusions.

  He unleashed the Tempest in an uncontrolled burst into faster than light speed; his only option in escaping Captain Cartrite’s dreaded destroyer, the Catalyst.